Things Can Change Fast...

Sometimes miracles are short lived but they are miracles none the less.  On Monday night my dad fell and hit his head.  Luckily he fell on the carpet instead of tile.  He has been complaining that his left side hasn't been working properly.  On Tuesday he couldn't even walk.  His left leg and arm were not working.  He had a doctors appointment on Wednesday, January 9, 2013 to get blood work done.  When they were at the hospital my mom asked if they could see the doctor as well because something wasn't right.  They took my dad in for a ct scan and found out that the cancer is growing again and the swelling in his brain is back.  The swelling is what is causing his left side to not function properly.  They hooked him up to an IV to give him some strength back and to also give him steroids through the IV.  That quickly took the swelling down and he is now able to walk again.  He used to be on steroid medication but they had weaned him off of that because it can be harmful to the body.  He is back on the steroid medication again to control the swelling.  They also stopped his chemo in pill form that he used to take for 5 days every 28 days.  They are going to start him on infusions.  He will go into the hospital once a week to get these infusions done.  It is basically an IV that they will insert the chemo through so that it will go directly into his blood stream.  The brain is a tricky thing.  It is meant to fight off bad things so that is exactly what it is doing to the chemo that he has been taking.  It's not getting to the cancer itself. 

 

So we are onto the next journey in fighting this cancer.  We pray that the infusions will control the cancer.  We feel very blessed that we were at least able to get some good news right before Christmas so that we could enjoy the holiday season.  But as we have all learned things can change very fast with cancer.  It was just three weeks ago that they told us, from the MRI, that nothing had changed and things weren't growing.  We are continuing to try and have faith and stay strong that this situation is solely in the Lord's hands and what will be will be.  My dad has an amazing testimony of this plan and he has been a great strength to all of us.

Miracles are Happening!!!

An update on my Dad's blog is far overdue!!!  I want to fill everyone in on the last few months and how my dad is doing.  Like I said in the last post my dad's last day of radiation treatments was on October 12, 2012.  We had to wait a month for him to receive his next MRI to see if the treatments stopped the cancer at all.  On November 8, 2012 he had his MRI.  We didn't receive the results back from that until November 12th.  They couldn't tell us much from this MRI which we were all a little disappointed about.  We thought they would be able to tell us whether or not the treatments were successful or not.  Instead they told us that this was the base line MRI and they will compare the next MRI to this one in two months.  So again we were left to wait.  We feel like we have been doing a lot of waiting to find out results.

In the meantime of waiting my dad has been having a very strong dose of chemotherapy for 5 days in a row every 28 days.  This has made him very sick and he does not have an appetite.  Everything that he tries to eat doesn't taste good to him whatsoever.  This has been a little frustrating for him because he is hungry but his taste buds are not the same so he doesn't want to eat much.  He tries his hardest to get up and do things around the house but he gets winded very quickly and he gets confused about how to do things so he spends most of his time in bed.  He can't figure out numbers or time anymore which is beyond sad seeing as how amazing at math he was.  Being good at math was his livelihood.  But in all this change he has stayed extremely positive. He has an incredible amount of faith that what is supposed to be will be.  

On November 17, 2012 my parents celebrated their 37th wedding anniversary!!!  My family drove to Colorado that day from Utah for the Thanksgiving holiday and we were able to celebrate with my parents.  My brother Doug and his wife Shauna and Joel and I all took my parents out to The Melting Pot for their special day.  I don't remember the last time my parents let us crash their anniversary evening so this was quite the treat!!!

Thanksgiving Day!!!  We were able to celebrate Thanksgiving with family and loved ones.  My mom cooked an amazing Thanksgiving feast as always!!!

Thanksgiving week came and went rather quickly.  We were helping my parents get ready for Christmas and everything that goes along with that.  Shopping, putting up Christmas lights, getting Christmas trees put together.  Everything that my dad has done for the last 37 years he was not able to do this holiday season in preparing for Christmas.  This was extremely hard on him and we want to thank so many of you who came and helped do everything from putting up lights to bringing in dinner and raking leaves and shoveling the driveway. 

On December 17, 2012 my dad was feeling very very sick so my mom took him to the hospital.  In talking with the doctor my mom had mentioned that my dad's leg had been bothering him.  The doctor acted very quickly and ordered an ultrasound.  Minutes later he was taken away to get an ultrasound of his leg.  The ultrasound showed that my dad had a blood clot from his groin to ankle.  This is another example of one of the many miracles we have seen since my dad has been diagnosed.  Once my dad was at the hospital he started feeling better.  We truly believe that he was so sick so that my mom would be prompted to take him to the hospital to find this blood clot which could have very easily been fatal.  We feel so blessed and grateful for these tender mercies!  Since my dad was in the hospital they decided to do an MRI on December 18th.  This was the second MRI that we were waiting for so that they could compare the MRI in October to this one.  The MRI came back with flying colors.  Nothing has changed at all which is great news!  The cancer hasn't grown or spread at all.  What an amazing thing to learn right before Christmas.  We could all rest easy knowing that the treatments are working.  He wasn't supposed to have his next MRI until January 8th so it was truly a blessing to learn this news so early.  My dad was released from the hospital on December 19th.  He had to give himself shots of blood thinner twice a day in order to be released.  He has been back to follow up appointments and his blood is back to where they would like to see it.  Being on all of these blood thinners has definitely made him extremely cold so he is trying to stay as bundled up as possible during all of this cold weather!

Christmas Eve Dinner!  We always have our big dinner on Christmas Eve that way we can all relax on Christmas and even stay in our pj's all day if we want!! 

 Every Christmas Eve we open new Christmas jammies!!  This year all of the grand kids got pj's and dream lights!!!  It was so fun to have all of the grandchildren together this Christmas to be with Grandpa!!!

 Grandpa opening his pajamas!!!

 Christmas morning opening up presents!

 In everything that my dad is going through his spirits are still high and he is truly a fighter!!! 

I think I can speak for the entire family in saying that we truly got the one gift that we asked for this year for Christmas, our Husband, Dad, Brother, Uncle, Grandpa, and Friend!!!  We are so blessed to have him in our lives!  He is really making us reflect on our own lives and reevaluate what really matters.

My dad will have another MRI in two months to monitor the cancer.  We will keep you updated as we find out more.  Unfortunately it's just a lot of waiting on our end so there isn't much to update. 

Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers and love that you show our family on a daily basis.  We couldn't get through this trial in life without the love and support of all of you.

Nothing Stops This Family!!!

Nothing stops this family from having FUN!!!!  I wanted to give a recap of where my Dad is at in his Journey and what the Brown's have been up to the last few weeks.  We had a trip planned to go to Disneyland for over a year.  When my Dad was diagnosed with brain cancer we didn't know that we would be able to go on this fun family vacation anymore.  It just so happened that my Dad's last day of treatments was the same day that we were going to fly to California.  My dad wasn't going to let anything stop this vaca from happening!!

A recap on my Dad before we dive into a thousand pictures!!  And probably more pics to come.  These are only some of the pics from my camera so I want to add some more from other cameras.  My dad finished his 7 weeks of radiation and chemo on October 12, 2012.  He has been such a fighter through all of this.  The last day of treatment was an emotional one for him.  He was sad to say goodbye to all of the nice people at the hospital that have been with him through fighting this cancer.  The doctor was impressed with how well my Dad handled the treatments.  Yes it took a lot out of him and he was exhausted most of the time but he did a lot better than expected.  He still gets confused with things and he has complained about losing some vision in his left eye.  We are not sure if this will ever come back so for now he is taking it one day at a time. We are now in a waiting period until he has his MRI on November 8th and we won't know the results from that until November 12th.  So we are still praying for the best and hoping that these treatments have killed some of the cancer cells. I will update the blog again once we find out those results and what the next step is.

Now on to the fun of our crazy, busy, fabulous, stressful, exhausting, fun, exciting trip!!!

Our trip started out with going to Balboa Island and having lunch and going to the beach.  And of course we rode the Ferris wheel!

Going across the ferry.

One of my dad's grandsons, Jaden, playing in the waves!  He was fearless!!

 My family (I guess we are in the stages where we will never get a "perfect family picture" haha)

 Maddox putting his toes in the sand for the first time!!

 Of course there was seashell collecting going on!  Bradli and Crew

 My dad really looks awesome and he did so great on the trip.  He was such a trooper!!

 Love this pic!!  We were posing for a picture and the water came up and we were not expecting it.

 The Gang!!  Minus David and his wife who we missed. 

 Grandpa laying poolside with Maddox

 Shauna doing tricks with Hudson!!!

 Me with Jaden and Crew

 We went to the Montage and played at the beach.  The kids loved running and playing in the water and sand!!!

 Grandpa and Hudson!!!

 We started our theme park week by going to Mickey's Halloween Party!!  We all dressed up and the kids got to go trick-or-treating!  This family loves Halloween so we were all in heaven!!! Doug and Shauna's family dressed up as Alice, cards, and Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum.  They looked so great no matter what Jaden says!!!  My family was Batmans and Robin and Cat woman.  We went to Disneyland for four days in a row followed up with one fun day at Sea World.  So needless to say we were going going going from sun up to sun down.  The kids did great considering how much we did in one week.  We all survived!!! haha

 My mom a witch and dad a wizard!!

 The kids loved filling their bags with candy!!!

 Jaden and Bradli had so much fun going on new rides for the first time!!  They definitely were able to experience Disneyland in a new light!!!

 We had so much fun getting Mickey ears/hats to wear throughout the week. 

 This little baby was soooo good every day.  He was all smiles and slept quite a bit.  He is a great little traveler!!

 We had dinner at Goofy's Kitchen with all of the characters.  The kids loved seeing all of the characters minus Hudson!!  haha Poor kid was terrified!  I definitely need to upload a pic of him.  Max below was torturing poor Hudson

 We had a very fun and HOTTTT day at California Adventure!!  I don't think we were prepared for such hot weather.  My mom bought this wheelchair for my dad so that he could rest when he needed to.  He preferred not to have it but I think it was a good idea for him to be able to rest. He really did so much better than I expected.  He is truly a fighter!!!

 So much fun on the new Little Mermaid ride

 Love Hudson's face!!!

 Miss B performing as usual (above)

 Going on new fun rides at Cars Land!!!

 The kids were able to go on this ride all by themselves and they were cracking up!!  They loved it!!

 The new Cars ride.  At least there was one perk with my dad having a wheelchair.  This wait was an hour and forty five minutes!!!  Crazy!!

 This picture cracks me up!  Crew doing some mad tricks on Goofy's slide.

 The kids loved Toon Town.  Little Maddox sitting in a garden hose.

 Crazy Doug in the background!!!

 The cutest Mickey and Minnie around!!!

 SEA WORLD!!!!

 The sea otter show

 The Shamu show!!!

 The kids loved playing with their cousins all week! 

 Crew, Jaden, and Maddox with pillow pets

 To end our trip we went back to Balboa to go Kayaking.  The picture of my dad didn't download for some reason so I will add that later too.  He went in a Kayak all by himself and he did great.  He got a little shaky but he loved being out on the water.

 Our last day in California we went down to Newport Beach and walked along the water and had lunch before we headed to the airport.

Thank you Mom and Dad for such and amazing and memorable trip.  Yes we crammed a lot in but had so much fun in all the craziness!!  We all love you both so much and are here to love and support you every step of the way! Dad you are such an amazing man and you have gone through so much so now it is your time to rest and re-cooperate from your weeks of treatments and our busy vacation to California.  

We will update the blog again as we know more about the results from the MRI in a couple of weeks.  We continue to thank all of you for your prayers and service to our family.  My mom and dad are continuing to be served on a daily basis!  Everything from food to cleaning the yard and raking up leaves.  I know my parents are in good hands!!! Thank you and we love you all!!!